Meet Lily Ashwell, An Emerging Designer With A Vintage Pedigree

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Lily Ashwell has an ethereal quality about her. It's the way she holds herself (delicately), the way she speaks (softly), and the way she designs (dreamily). The 25-year-old just debuted a feminine holiday collection, the first under her eponymous label, that proves her goods are more than meets the eye.
"I don't like seeing the waste of materials and the waste of hard work that goes into a lot of fashion collections these days," she explains. So she turned to deadstock fabric — which she printed over — and lace — used as trim — to make old things new again. "I like the idea of clothes being really special and knowing that not hundreds of people are going to have them, so there's a very limited number of everything." It was time her spent in England that got Lily interested in all things vintage; the self-proclaimed "strange hoarder of beautiful things" turns to the extensive vintage collection she's now amassed for inspiration.
The daughter of British painter David Ashwell and Shabby Chic designer Rachel Ashwell, Lily spent much of her California-based childhood visiting family across the pond. She's now back in LA, where her nascent company is based, after indulging her Anglophilia with four years at London's Central Saint Martins. "At school, they did teach us to sew and all of the other technical aspects of clothing design, but they seemed more fixed on the storytelling aspect of creating a collection," she says of what attracted her to the prestigious design program.
And Lily is deliberate in the use of storytelling in her creative process: "I think in a very cinematic way, so I usually start with a landscape of the setting where I see the collection, and the holiday collection was in Wales. I was feeling coastal towns meeting pastures and farmland, so I start with an image like that. Then I make journals, where I create an illustrated story of who this girl is. I'll go as far as designing her house and creating an all-encompassing story around her."
With a backstory literally all sketched out, she then goes to her vintage room — yes, she has a vintage room — to pick pieces that could fit into the narrative. She keeps her collections small, eschewing filler and keeping designs as seasonless as possible.
Of course, Lily also takes advice from her mother (who she calls "my mentor and biggest inspiration"), and has even set up a pop-up store within New York's Rachel Ashwell Shabby Chic Couture boutique. While she's just in the beginning stages of her career, she's planning on sticking around for a while.
"I just want to keep making beautiful things that speak to people and that will last for years and years. I try really hard in my clothes to make them as soulful and human as possible," she says. "I guess that's the word for my aesthetic, human."
Click through for images from Lily Ashwell's holiday lookbook, and see the full collection at LilyAshwell.com.

The up-and-comer is selling her very first collection of dreamy duds at her mom's Shabby Chic Couture boutique.

Lily Ashwell has an ethereal quality about her. It's the way she holds herself (delicately), the way she speaks (softly), and the way she designs (dreamily). The 25-year-old just debuted a feminine holiday collection, the first under her eponymous label, that proves her goods are more than meets the eye.
"I don't like seeing the waste of materials and the waste of hard work that goes into a lot of fashion collections these days," she explains. So she turned to deadstock fabric — which she printed over — and lace — used as trim — to make old things new again. "I like the idea of clothes being really special and knowing that not hundreds of people are going to have them, so there's a very limited number of everything." It was time her spent in England that got Lily interested in all things vintage; the self-proclaimed "strange hoarder of beautiful things" turns to the extensive vintage collection she's now amassed for inspiration.
The daughter of British painter David Ashwell and Shabby Chic designer Rachel Ashwell, Lily spent much of her California-based childhood visiting family across the pond. She's now back in LA, where her nascent company is based, after indulging her Anglophilia with four years at London's Central Saint Martins. "At school, they did teach us to sew and all of the other technical aspects of clothing design, but they seemed more fixed on the storytelling aspect of creating a collection," she says of what attracted her to the prestigious design program.
And Lily is deliberate in the use of storytelling in her creative process: "I think in a very cinematic way, so I usually start with a landscape of the setting where I see the collection, and the holiday collection was in Wales. I was feeling coastal towns meeting pastures and farmland, so I start with an image like that. Then I make journals, where I create an illustrated story of who this girl is. I'll go as far as designing her house and creating an all-encompassing story around her."
With a backstory literally all sketched out, she then goes to her vintage room — yes, she has a vintage room — to pick pieces that could fit into the narrative. She keeps her collections small, eschewing filler and keeping designs as seasonless as possible.
Of course, Lily also takes advice from her mother (who she calls "my mentor and biggest inspiration"), and has even set up a pop-up store within New York's Rachel Ashwell Shabby Chic Couture boutique. While she's just in the beginning stages of her career, she's planning on sticking around for a while.
"I just want to keep making beautiful things that speak to people and that will last for years and years. I try really hard in my clothes to make them as soulful and human as possible," she says. "I guess that's the word for my aesthetic, human."
Click through for images from Lily Ashwell's holiday lookbook, and see the full collection at LilyAshwell.com.

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The up-and-comer is selling her very first collection of dreamy duds at her mom's Shabby Chic Couture boutique.